Glafcos Ioannou Clerides

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Alternative Title:
Glafcos Ioannou Clerides

Glafcos Ioannou Clerides, Greek Cypriot politician (born April 24, 1919, Nicosia, British Cyprus—died Nov. 15, 2013, Nicosia, Greek Cyprus), sought to broker a peaceful solution to the partition of his island homeland into Greek and Turkish zones in his roles as chief negotiator (1974–76) and president (1993–2003) of Greek Cyprus. Clerides served as a gunner in Britain’s Royal Air Force during World War II; he was shot down over enemy territory and was held in a series of Nazi prison camps. Following the war he received a law degree (1948) from King’s College London, and after returning to Cyprus to practice law, he joined the anti-British independence movement EOKA. During the 1959 peace talks in London, he assisted Archbishop Makarios III (independent Cyprus’s first president); he was then named President Makarios’s first minister of justice. Clerides was elected speaker of Cyprus’s House of Representatives in 1960, and he held the position of acting president when Makarios was temporarily ousted in a military coup in 1974. Clerides campaigned for the presidency three times (1978, 1983, and 1988) before winning the office in 1993. He established good relations with Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash but was unable to achieve a settlement and eventual reunification. In his second term as president, Clerides laid the groundwork for the entrance into the EU of the Greek part of Cyprus (2004).